Simon Wessely on Covid-19

Essentially that the personal characteristics of the patients and in particular their presumed psychological vulnerability led to the perpetuation of symptoms. This was the work carried out on staff at Fort Detrick funded by the US Army Chemical Corps. It was introduced to the UK by Eisenberg in 1987 and often quoted thereafter. Strauss seems to have learned of it in 1987.
 
chrisb said:
Essentially that the personal characteristics of the patients and in particular their presumed psychological vulnerability led to the perpetuation of symptoms. This was the work carried out on staff at Fort Detrick funded by the US Army Chemical Corps. It was introduced to the UK by Eisenberg in 1987 and often quoted thereafter. Strauss seems to have learned of it in 1987.
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Oh. That's where that came from. Interesting to know.
 


‪A more interesting question is why the president of Royal Society of Medicine (who was, and may still be, a member of SAGE) appeared to be so reluctant to follow PHE and WHO advice on self-isolating when his wife had Covid-19. On 14 March Nick Robinson informed listeners to the Today Programme that Simon Wessely had to be prevented from coming to the studios against his wishes (as discussed on this thread).
 
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I am very reluctant to start going out again even if the lockdown is lifted but not because of any

"deep shelter syndrome” or despondency, distrust and avoidance
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but because the virus has not gone away, the epidemic is not over and there is still no treatment. The lockdown gave us time to get measures in place to cope, nothing more.

Social distancing measures and facemasks will help, but as someone with ME who has deteriorated badly in the past with flu and who is at high risk from the coronavirus because of other illnesses and age, I will make the practical and logical decision to stay away from people as much as possible.
 
Wessely's reaction to this pandemic is really exposing his full arrogance and recklessness.

I can only hope the rest of the medical profession in the UK is (finally) paying attention, and making serious moves to sideline him and his insane fairy tales.
 
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Just had the pleasure of listening to Sir Simon being interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 program 'The Week in Westminster' broadcast at 11am today, starting about 8 minutes in.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000j7gc
The interview introduces him by his fancy job title etc and says 'and is/was a member of SAGE'. The word is or was is slurred and it's hard to tell but I think he said 'was'.

SW says he thinks the current messaging to 'stay alert' is unclear. He rambles on with his personal ideas about how people react without presenting any evidence, including this:

"Well, we've never had this sort of situation before. When we did our earlier review of the side effects of quarantine just as this was starting, I took a guess that I thought 12 weeks of the kind of restrictions we have now is about the longest a full population can tolerate. And I think we are already starting to see those cracks"

And he goes on to describe a poll that showed 45% fearful, compliant and wanting tighter restrictions, and then another group that are sort of coping OK and " another group that will get larger and larger of those actively resisting..."

He then says we can "probably hazard a guess" that we will end up with two camps - the fearful compliers and the active resisters.

So it sounds like he is in the thick of the decision making, guessing like mad and calling it scientific advice.
 
Trish said:
And he goes on to describe a poll that showed 45% fearful, compliant and wanting tighter restrictions, and then another group that are sort of coping OK and " another group that will get larger
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My husband and his colleagues don't seem to fit into any of the groups Sir Simon has "guessed" at.

They are complying with the rules to stay healthy, their employer discussed returning to work & some have agreed to go in with lots of restrictions on what they can and can't do. Most will remain working from home where possible on the grounds its is possible and in line with government advice.

Is that fearful? I don't think so. It's simply common sense and supporting the effort to keep R as far below 1 as possible.

They're still shopping and taking their daily exercise and doing whatever else they can while being responsible citizens.

Edit changed a 0 to 1. Quite tricky to get R below 0 I should think!
 
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He also doesn't seem to realise that the cracks are coming partly because the government is giving such mixed messages. But it confirms my suspicion that the 12 weeks that was announced at the start of lockdown especially for those in the 'shielding' group probably came straight out of SW's imagination. And the way he talked it was pretty clear that he has been involved in SAGE from the start.
 
Trish said:
The interview introduces him by his fancy job title etc and says 'and is/was a member of SAGE'. The word is or was is slurred and it's hard to tell but I think he said 'was'.
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Listened a couple of times and I’m prettying sure he said “was”.

It doesn’t mention whether or not he is in spy SPI-B, but the intro confirms that he is director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response at Kings College London: http://epr.hpru.nihr.ac.uk/our-team/investigators/professor-sir-simon-wessely
 
Trish said:
"Well, we've never had this sort of situation before
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...

Yeah well, then you cannot make any predictions can you? That is called inductive reasoning Simon and is the basis of science.

If people were so likely to get bored with lockdown why didn't the government avoid lockdown altogether by making the contact tracking programme work and closing airports?

I think there is a very large group missing from his calculation. These people are muddling along OK, but also flabbergasted by the incompetence of the system and bored to tears by all the psychologising.

And while we are about it good science does not attribute numbers where they are meaningless. What does it mean to say 45% are fearful? What about those who are only fearful in the morning or on Thursdays? He needs to wake up to real life.
 
I believe my husband and I are sensible reponders. We are at risk because of age and my ME so he only goes out now for one weekly shop and to the chemist for medication for myself and our grandson who is also at high risk. We know that the virus has not gone away so we will carry on taking precautions for as long as we think necessary, judging every situation by what we understand of the science and weighing up the risks.
 
I believe that articles that try to expand mental health problems to broad sections of the population are damaging for patients with serious mental health problems.

If a person with ordinary levels of worry is told that worrying is a mental health problem, that person might conclude that mental health problems are trivial and should not be taken seriously. This sentiment could eventually end up influencing health policy to the detriment of people with serious mental health problems.

There is also the risk that resources are used to treat ordinary negative emotions that are not truly a problem, and that there are then few resources left for those most in need.
 
Invisible Woman said:
Is that fearful? I don't think so. It's simply common sense and supporting the effort to keep R as far below 1 as possible.
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Describing people as "fearful" in this context comes across as being derogatory. What in most people would be described as prudence or common sense under the circumstances is being given a derogatory label by SW and I can only assume that this is deliberate.
 
But psychologising is a fun and satisfying activity. It's also an activity that apparently anyone can engage in -- since factual accuracy is not required.

I would like to psychologise the situation as: some people who are very much at the centre of life the universe and everything else are terminally bored with not being adored in person during this time of isolation.

Very little by way of supporting facts (actually none) but satisfying none the less.
 
I've just been reading Dr Kendrick's latest blog :

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2020/05/16/food-bank-show-next-episode/

and as usual it is well worth reading.

I also liked this comment on the blog by someone called Shaun Clark. It made me think of SW :

I’m reminded once again of what Daniel Dennett wrote in Consciousness Explained:

“The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn’t need its brain anymore so it eats it! (It’s rather like getting tenure.”)
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